Will Achuthanandan-Vijayan feud split Kerala CPM?

Thiruvananthapuram: Feud in Kerala CPI(M) today intensified further with veteran party leader V S Achuthanandan lashing out at party state Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan for dubbing Marxist rebels, like recently murdered T P Chandrasekharan, as "betrayers and renegades".

Sharpening his attack on Vijayan for the second time in less than a week, the 88-year-old founder leader of the CPI(M) said this approach of the state secretary was as bad as the autocratic line adopted by late S A Dange on the eve of the split of the undivided CPI in 1964.

"I am one of those 30 odd people who came out of the CPI national council in 1964 culminating our struggle against revisionist trends in the movement. We were dubbed as class enemies and betrayers by Dange then. Those who are calling the rebels as betrayers and renegades now are adopting the same autocratic approach," he told a press meet here.

"Ours is not a party like Congress where the decision of the high command could be imposed on the lower tiers. Our practice is to have detailed discussions within the party before formulating stand on any issue," he said. The former chief minister said he firmly stood by his earlier statement that seeing people like Chadrasekharan as betrayers and renegades was Vijayan's personal opinion and not that of the party.

VS Achutanandan lashed out lashing out at party state Secretary PinarayiVijayan for dubbing Marxist rebel s "betrayers and renegades".

The party's approach was that the rebels who had left the organisation over various issues including ideological deviations should be brought back by convincing them of the correctness of the party line. Asked if his open assertion against the leadership would not lead to disciplinary action, he quipped, "let us see." Achuthanandan, a central committee member, was dropped from the CPI(M) politburo a few years ago for challenging the party line on a corruption case in which Vijayan figured.

On the reluctance of the central leadership to intervene in the latest flare up of the feud between him and Vijayan, Achutanandan said he expected that the central leaders would take a stand after studying the issue in detail.

Significantly, Achuthanandan was hitting out at Vijayan for the second time in less than week after his virtual denouncement of latter over the rebel issue.

He had then took strong exception to the derogatory Malayalam expression "kulamkuthi", which means betrayer of the clan, used by Vijayan to describe party rebels. Chandrasekharan was a popular CPI(M) leader from the party stronghold Onjiyam before he was expelled for questioning the ideological deviations and opulent lifestyle of a section of the leaders.

When he was in CPI-M, he was known to be a close supporter of Achuthanandan and after his expulsion he continued to challenge the party by floating the Revolutionary Marxist Party.